1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an endoscope system, and more particularly to an endoscope system capable of performing bending control on an endoscope including a bending portion.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, endoscopes have been widely used in medical and industrial fields. In the medical field, for example, endoscopes are used for performing observation and various kinds of treatment on living tissues and the like.
Furthermore, when observation and various kinds of treatment are performed on a lower digestive tract by inserting an insertion portion from an anus side of a subject, in order to smoothly insert the insertion portion in a flexed lumen, an endoscope insertion shape detecting apparatus, which is capable of detecting, for example, a position of the insertion portion in a body cavity and a flexing state (bending state) of the insertion portion, is used together with the endoscope.
In recent years, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2006-116289 has proposed a bending control apparatus which is capable of selecting and executing bending control corresponding to either an endoscopic image acquired by an endoscope including a bending portion or an insertion shape image of the endoscope acquired by the endoscope insertion shape detecting apparatus.
Furthermore, endoscopes used in the medical field includes, for example, an elongated insertion portion configured to be insertable in a body cavity, a distal end portion provided on a distal end side of the insertion portion and having an image pickup section capable of picking up an image of a subject in the body cavity, and a bending portion which is connected to the distal end portion and which is capable of changing the position and orientation of the distal end portion with respect to the insertion direction of the insertion portion.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 7-155289 discloses a technique applicable to the assistance of the bending operation of the above-described bending portion.
The Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 7-155289 proposes an endoscope apparatus which is capable of performing control such that, after extracting a dark part region from an image acquired by an endoscope, the distal end portion of the endoscope is advanced toward the center portion of the dark part region.